Although SSDs are many times faster than regular ones hard drives, this does not mean that solid-state devices cannot be optimized - on the contrary. Of course, this is by no means mandatory and even if you do not follow the advice in this article, your SSD will in any case provide you with much higher performance than any magnetic one. HDD. However, if you want to get the best of what it can do and don't mind achieving peak results, here are some interesting ideas on the topic.

Optimization in BIOS

After installing the SSD, check which SATA connector it is connected to. This information can be found in the BIOS menu, which can be accessed by pressing the Del or F2 key when turning on the computer - almost immediately after pressing the power button.

Go to the BIOS section responsible for managing disk devices. The title of this section may vary depending on the make and model of laptop/motherboard, and if you have difficulty finding it, try searching the manufacturer's website for the relevant information.

Inside this section, make sure that the SATA port that the SSD is connected to is configured to use AHCI mode. This is a special interface (Advanced Host Controller Interface) developed by Intel for communication between a disk device and RAM. Unlike the older IDE mode, it allows the SSD to fully utilize the transmission power of the SATA channel to which it is connected. This is especially important if your laptop/computer has the latest edition of the standard (3.0) SATA ports, which provide peak data transfer speeds of up to 600 MB/s. Many modern SSD devices are quite capable of supporting such a serious throughput and at ideal conditions will provide you with a read/write speed of about 500-550 MB/s.

Choosing the modern AHCI interface mode has another advantage - the operation of some SSD models in IDE mode can lead to problems with the so-called TRIM support. This is a feature that is supported only by modern operating systems - Windows 7 and newer versions. Its goal is to take care of the “good health” of the solid-state drive. In reality, TRIM is a command with which the system periodically queries the device controller, which is responsible for distributing information throughout it. Speaking in simple words TRIM improves the performance of the SSD, but if it is configured to run in IDE mode, the TRIM function may not work properly.

Optimization at the Windows level

As mentioned above, to get the most out of an SSD, it must have good level support. operating system. The problem with versions of Windows released before Windows 7 is that they are simply not designed to work with drives like these, which have recently hit the market en masse. Therefore, my advice to you is that if you intend to upgrade from HDD to SSD, first think about upgrading to a modern Windows version(7 or higher), of course, if you haven't already done so.

After connecting the drive, be sure to make sure that the system SATA drivers are updated to the latest, most current version. To do this, your first stop should be the motherboard/laptop manufacturer's website.

Also make sure that the solid state drive uses current version firmware. All SSD manufacturers offer a special service tool for this purpose, which you can find and download on the official website. Many of these tools offer useful functions beyond just checking whether the firmware is up to date - they include options for general system optimization, such as disabling defragmentation, which not only does not improve the performance of the SSD, but can also seriously reduce its lifespan.

This, however, is not the only optimization at the operating system level that can and should be undertaken. Another Windows feature that is not necessary and it is advisable to disable it is the so-called indexing of disk information. It is designed to speed up searches on large file sizes, but on significantly slower ones. hard drives, and in the case of SSD drives this function is completely unnecessary. Moreover, like defragmentation, the indexing process is accompanied by many disk accesses, which, as has already been mentioned several times, can shorten the life of the SSD.

To disable indexing, click right click mouse on your drive icon, select “Properties” and uncheck “Allow the contents of files on this drive to be indexed in addition to file properties.”

Another useful optimization is to reduce the so-called virtual memory (page file). This is an area on the system disk that Windows reserves for use if there is not enough free RAM to load user applications. In such cases, the system stores “excess” information from memory on disk, that is, data that is not currently required, but is loaded back into RAM upon user request.

You understand that this is due to multiple read/write cycles from the system partition, which in the case of an SSD once again shortens its service life. Therefore, it is recommended to either reduce the size of the paging file, or (which is preferable) move it to another partition - for example, to an additional hard drive, if you have one.

To do this, right-click on the Computer (or This PC) folder, select Properties, then Advanced System Settings. In the "Performance" section, click the "Options" button, select the "Advanced" tab and in the "Virtual Memory" section, click "Change".

By default, the location and size of the paging file are determined automatically. To move this file to another location, disable the "Automatically select paging file size" option, then select a non-system drive/partition from the list below and click Set.

You can disable this feature completely if you have a really significant amount of RAM - say, 16 gigabytes or more. This will not only save you precious SSD space, but also improve overall system performance by forcing Windows to use RAM exclusively, which is even faster than an SSD.

Hibernation mode is another system feature that isn't really needed if you're using an SSD. If you've read our text on this topic, then you probably remember that hibernation ensures fast startup of the operating system and energy efficiency - two issues that are quite effectively solved by using a solid-state drive. This makes hibernation redundant and it's best to disable it - heavy use of hibernation will amortize your SSD by making unnecessary disk accesses.

To disable hibernation, press +R on your keyboard, type CMD and press Enter to bring up the Command Prompt window. Then enter the command powercfg -h off and press Enter. Done – hibernation is deactivated.

Now many users are upgrading their personal computers and laptops by installing SSD drives on them - solid state drives. Compared to the already familiar HDDs, solid state drives really have a significant advantage in terms of speed of work in operating systems and work with data.

Many people have a completely logical question: is it necessary to make any additional adjustments to personal computers and laptops when installing a new SSD? In our article, we will try to consider in detail how to work with SSDs in the two most popular operating systems – Windows 7 and Windows 10 (the actions that we will perform in the “top ten” can also be used on Windows 8).

In the notes, we note some features of SSD manufacturers, as well as some nuances for working with SSDs in laptops. So how do we configure an SSD to get the most out of the modern hardware we buy and install?

Microsoft, when creating an operating Windows systems 7, initially assumed that this system would be compatible with SSD solid-state drives, and when such drives are detected, the system settings will occur automatically. However, it is best to manually check all your computer settings to get the most out of your SSD.

• AHCI mode

To perform its functions, the system requires the SATA controller to operate in AHCI mode. To do this, you need to find the SATA configuration menu in the BIOS (Cohfigure SATA As). Typically, these configurations are located in the Main section, and switch them to AHCI mode. You can check the system in a simple way: “Start Menu” – “Control Panel” – “System” item. Select “Device Manager” and find the item IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers there. If this item is present, then expand it and find controllers with AHCI in the names in the lists. If we find AHCI names there, then our system operates in the mode we need. If there are no such names, then the system is not switched to work in AHCI mode. Naturally, it is necessary that the BIOS itself supports operation in this mode.

• TRIM command

After we have made sure that the system is switched to AHCI mode, we need to check whether the TRIM command is enabled. TRIM improves system performance on solid-state drives by telling operating systems which blocks of previously written data are no longer needed because the data in them has been deleted or formatted. Simply put, the TRIM command “cleanses up the garbage” and significantly speeds up work SSD drive, being a replacement for defragmentation on conventional HDDs.

Notes:

* For SSD operation in the Windows 7 operating system, it is best to combine computers SSD and HDD. This will allow us to combine improved speed performance with HDD reliability.

* It is, of course, preferable to install the operating system on an SSD, like all major programs

* It is advisable to leave about 20 percent of the total volume of the solid-state drive unallocated when installing the operating system. With natural wear and tear, the SSD will take clusters from there for its work.

Optimization in Windows 7 for working with SSD

• Disabling system protection

To limit unnecessary write operations and return available space to the SSD, disable the “System Protection” function as follows: right-click on the “My Computer” icon and select “Properties” from the drop-down menu. In the window that opens, find the “System Protection” tab and go to it. Click the “Configure” button and select “Disable system protection”.

Some experts warn that System Protection may degrade performance over time SSD drive and negatively impact the TRIM function due to its data recording nature.

• Disable disk indexing

Due to the high performance of SSDs, the disk indexing function is not useful to us, because Disk indexing was designed specifically to speed up work on HDDs. To do this, on the “My Computer” icon, call up the drop-down menu with the right mouse button and select “Properties” again. In the “General” section, uncheck the box next to “Allow the contents of files on this drive to be indexed in addition to file properties.”

• Disabling the page file

If you have a 64-bit operating system installed and the amount of RAM exceeds 8 Gigabytes, it would be advisable to disable the Paging File function. To do this, call up the drop-down menu again by right-clicking on the “My Computer” icon and select “Properties”. In the “Properties” window, find the “Advanced Settings” tab, then the “Performance” item, then the “Options” item, select the “Advanced” item and find the “Virtual Memory” section. Check the “No paging file” option and click “Set”. When working with the page file, you need to remember that with some applications that use a large number of RAM resources when disabling the use of the paging file, difficulties may arise.

• Disabling hibernation

Hibernation was created so that the work you were doing on your computer could be resumed almost instantly. So, when the hibernation function is enabled, the entire contents of the RAM are reset to the hard drive, and then, upon awakening, they are immediately read. When working with an SSD, this function is not necessary, since the resumption of work is already quite fast. This way we save precious space on our SSD.

We disable the function like this: in the search bar in the Start Menu, type cmd and call the command line utility. After which in command line type the command: powercfg –h off and press the “Enter” key.

It is worth noting that it is not always advisable to disable hibernation. For example, on laptops, disabling hibernation will result in the computer having to be restarted every time it is closed.

• Disabling Memory Management

When enabled, Superfetch caches frequently used data, while Prefetch preloads frequently used applications. In the case of working on an SSD drive, due to the high speed of data access, we will no longer need these functions and we will be able to free up memory and let our drive work only when needed. To disable, perform the following steps: in the “Start Menu” in the search bar, type the command regedit, thereby opening the window for working with the registry. We consistently search for and select registry items: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters. Then, with the right mouse button, call up the submenu on the EnableSuperfetch and EnablePrefetcher items one by one. Select the “Change” item and change the values ​​to zero.

In the same way, we change the values ​​to zero in the ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache parameters. The LargeSystemCache setting specifies the size and frequency of flushing the cached page to disk, and the ClearPageFileAtShutdown setting clears the page file when the PC is shut down, which results in additional writes that we no longer need. Path to parameters: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management. Select the ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache items, go to their menu with the right mouse button and, selecting “Change” in each item, set the parameter to zero.

After this, reboot the computer.

• Disable Windows write caching

Since SSDs are much faster than traditional HDDs, the enabled write caching function does not give us any special speed advantages, so you can deactivate it. But, in turn, SSD manufacturer Intel warns that removing this feature will negatively impact the performance of its SSDs. Disable caching feature Windows entries We can do this as follows: in the root folder of Explorer “My Computer”, right-click and select “Device Manager” through the “Properties” item. Select the “Disk devices” item and right-click on our SSD, thereby calling up a submenu. In the submenu, select the “Properties” section and in the properties window on the “Policies” tab, uncheck the “Allow caching of records for this device” checkbox. Then press the OK button.

• Disable Windows Search

Windows Search creates indexes separate files, documents and folders on your hard drive. The index is stored in a separate Search folder on drive C and takes up to 10% of the volume of indexed documents, so that when searching, part of the index is loaded into memory and significantly speeds it up. In the case of an SSD, again, this function will not give us a noticeable increase in speed. But indexes take up space on the solid-state drive, and the enabled this function can really negatively affect the performance of the SSD. Therefore, we disable the Windows Search function as follows: in the search bar in the Start Menu, type the command services.msc and press Enter to bring up a menu with a list of local services. Find Superfetch in the list and right-click on it to bring up the service menu. In the Startup Type drop-down menu, select Disabled and click OK. Then find Windows service Search and right-click on it again, select “Properties” and click on the “Stop” button, and then in the “Startup Type” menu, also select the “Disabled” option and click OK.

• Transferring TEMP folders

To free up additional space on the SSD and avoid unnecessary overwriting, we move folders with temporary files to another drive. To do this, go to the “Control Panel”, select the “My Computer” icon, then the “Advanced system settings” section and in the “Advanced” tab go to the “Environment Variables” menu, where we click the change button, and change the final addresses of the folders with temporary storage data for new ones.

• Transferring user folders

To perform the same task as in the previous paragraph, transfer all user folders to another drive (including the “Video”, “Audio”, “Downloads”, “Favorites” and others) folders. We create a separate user folder on another drive and in “Folder Options”, which we call by right-clicking on the selected folder, on the “Location” tab, click the move button and set a new location for the folders to be moved.

• Disable NTFS journaling

You can also disable logging NTFS systems. To do this, in the Start menu, in the search bar, type cmd and open the command line. In the command line, type the command: fsutil usn deletejournal /D C: and press “Enter”.

• Disable regular defragmentation

As mentioned above, the defragmentation function is intended to work with HDDs and we do not need it when working with SSDs. Therefore, we disable it as follows: in the “Start” menu, in the search bar, type the word “defragmentation”, select the found disk defragmentation program, find the “Schedule” tab and uncheck the “Run on a schedule” checkbox.

• Setting Energy Consumption

For best performance your SSD needs to manually configure its power supply. To do this, call the “Control Panel”, find “Power Options” there and set the following parameters: in “Setting up a power plan” in the parameters, select “High performance” and click “Apply”. Go to “Setting the power plan” and in the “Change additional power settings” item, select the “Hard disk” item, the “Turn off the hard drive after” sub-item and set the “Never” option, that is, “00 minutes”.

Optimization in Windows 10 (8) for working with SSD

When working with the Windows 10 (8) operating system, it is best to complete all the points related to Windows 7. The fact is that “Ten” independently makes some changes when it detects a solid-state drive. Here is a list of standard automatic system optimizations:

• Disable defragmentation;
• Connecting the TRIM function;
• Disable ReadyBoost feature;
• SSD power optimization;
• Enable the Superfetch option.

All other optimization items will have to be performed manually. You can proceed according to the scheme with the Windows 7 operating system that we proposed above.

There is another option. You can download free utility SSD Mini Tweaker, launch it, check the boxes required to complete it and apply the changes. It is recommended to check all the optimization menu options offered by the SSD Mini Tweaker program.

Notes:

*For maximum performance when using an SSD, it is recommended to connect it to SATA 3 ports operating at 6 Gigabits per second.

* Don't forget to periodically check your SSD manufacturer's website for firmware updates and install them.

As we can see from the article, optimizing the system for working with a solid-state drive requires some settings. And if Windows 7 will have to be carefully configured manually, then in the Windows 10 and 8 operating systems some settings are applied automatically when the system detects a solid-state drive during installation, and adjustment for working with an SSD drive in the system can be done using a free utility specially designed for this SSD Mini Tweaker.

Recently, solid-state drives have been gaining considerable popularity and becoming more affordable. Considering that the speed of SSD drives is much higher than the speed of conventional HDD drives, it is quite logical that many people decided to increase the performance of their computer by purchasing this miracle. modern technologies. A solid-state drive can really help your computer think faster, but there are a few things to consider that we'll talk about now.

Make an SSD your system drive

Performance gains can only be achieved by installing a solid state drive as a system drive. Otherwise, the speed will increase only in those applications that are installed directly on the SSD, and then not by much.

Update the drive firmware

The newer the firmware version, the faster your SSD drive will work. Latest version Firmware can always be found on the manufacturer's official website. Download the driver and install it according to the instructions (must come with the driver).

Install the system from scratch

It is best to install the operating system on a new SSD drive from scratch rather than restore it from an image. This will help avoid compatibility conflicts in future operation.

Disconnect other drives

Before installing the operating system on an SSD drive, it is recommended to turn off the power or unplug the SATA cables from all other drives. This is necessary for Windows 7 to accurately determine the type of drive and reconfigure services to work with the SSD drive.

Install a clean image

Only the original and complete one should be installed on the SSD drive. Windows image 7. "Optimized" Windows builds Of course, they take up less disk space, but they can disable or even remove services and functions that are vital for the stable operation of the operating system on an SSD.

Activate AHCI mode

Before installing Windows 7 on your SSD, enable BIOS settings recognition of SATA devices in AHCI mode. This option allows you to activate some new Windows features, aimed at accelerating the operation of the disk subsystem.

Format the drive

If your SSD drive has been used before, you will need to completely format it before installing the operating system. Since the principle of recording data on HDD and SSD is significantly different, quick formatting for an SSD drive will not be enough

Mark up wisely

Partitioning a solid-state drive into partitions is more convenient and reliable using utilities from third party developers, For example Acronis Disk Director.

Check

After installing Windows 7 on your SSD, it doesn’t hurt to check how correctly it is recognized by the system. For this it is best to use free program CrystalDiskInfo. We launch the program and look at information about our disks. In line Rotational speed The disk type must be specified - SSD. Also in line Possibilities The TRIM function must be specified.

Now let's check if AHCI mode is active. We go to the Task Manager and in the item IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers We are looking for a controller called AHCI. If there is none, then restart the computer, go to the BIOS settings and try to activate the AHCI mode again.

Disable indexing

The indexing feature helps speed up searches in the Windows operating system environment. However, this option increases the load on the disk, thereby accelerating its wear and slowing down its operation (a little, but still). In addition, the solid-state drive, due to its high speed and without indexing, quickly finds necessary files. Therefore, you can safely disable indexing. To do this, go to Explorer, right-click on the icon of our SSD drive and select context menu paragraph Properties. Then uncheck the option Allow the contents of files on this drive to be indexed in addition to file properties.

Disable the defragmentation service

Due to a different operating mechanism than HDDs, the defragmentation service is not needed for solid-state drives and is even contraindicated (NAND memory used in SSD drives has a limited number of rewrite cycles). As a rule, Windows 7 automatically disables the defragmentation service during installation on an SSD drive, but if this does not happen, then we can disable it manually. Open the menu Start, press Execute and write in the line: services.msc. Now we find the service in the list Disk Defragmenter, double-click on it with the mouse and in the field Startup type select a parameter Disabled.

Disable creation of restore points

When the point creation function is active Windows recovery the operation of the TRIM function, which is very important for SSDs, is blocked, which ultimately leads to a gradual decrease in the speed of the SSD disk. To disable the function of the operating system creating restore points, right-click on the icon My computer, go to Properties and go to the tab System protection. Click on the button here Tune and select the item disable system protection.

Still have questions? - We will answer them for FREE

So, you got a brand new SSD. You installed the system on it, armed yourself with an optimization guide you found on the Internet, and after a couple of hours you did everything possible to... slow down your work in the system!

Don't believe me? Think about what makes for high performance. Advantages SSD speeds you can feel in three categories:

• system, for example, the speed of its loading and operation
• programs, including web surfing and working with documents, images and media files
• your actions, including disk navigation and copying/moving files

How myths are born

I'm pretty sure your SSD tuning measures negatively impacted at least one of these components. Later you will find out why this happened, but first about the reasons for such optimization.

If you read the inscription “buffalo” on the elephant’s cage...

There are plenty of guides and even tweakers online for optimizing SSDs. In fact, the same information is used everywhere, and:

• outdated, since it is aimed at saving disk space and reducing the number of rewrite cycles, which is irrelevant for modern SSDs in home PCs
• useless, because Windows itself takes care of what it offers to configure
• harmful, because it leads to a decrease in the speed of work - yours, programs and system

Look critical on your guide or tweaker and think about which items fit into one of these categories!

There is another problem - unsuccessful presentation of information, including incorrectly placed accents.

If you have a HDD along with an SSD, measure the speeds of both drives and keep the picture in mind. I will return to her, and more than once!

Special Notes for Dissenters

After publishing the material, I decided to specifically clarify several points so as not to repeat them regularly in the comments when responding to opponents.

In this article:

1. All myths are considered solely from the point of view of speeding up the system, programs and the user.. If a measure is declared useless or harmful, this means that it does not contribute in any way to speeding up work.
2. Reducing the volume of disk writes is not considered as an optimization measure due to the irrelevance of this approach. If this is your goal, myths 3 - 11 are for you, as is storing an SSD in a sideboard.
3. Using a RAM disk is not considered as it is not directly related to SSD optimization. If you have excess RAM, you can use a RAM disk regardless of the type of drive installed in your PC.
4. All recommendations are given with a wide audience in mind, i.e. to the majority users. When analyzing advice, keep in mind that they may not correspond to your tasks, work skills and ideas about the optimal and competent use of the operating system.

Now - let's go! :)

Myths

1. Disable SuperFetch, ReadyBoot and Prefetch

This advice: controversial, can reduce the speed of program launch, and also in Windows 10 - increase the volume of disk writes and reduce the overall performance of the OS if there is insufficient RAM

Speed ​​of launching programs from the hard drive

When each program is launched, the prefetcher checks for the presence of a trace (.pf file). If one is found, the prefetcher uses references to the MFT metadata file system to open all the necessary files. It then calls a special memory manager function to asynchronously read from the trace data and code that is not in memory on this moment. When a program is launched for the first time or the startup script has changed, the prefetcher writes new file trace (highlighted in the figure).

It is unlikely that SuperFetch is capable of speeding up the launch of programs from an SSD, but Microsoft does not disable the function, given the presence of hard drives in the system. If the SSD manufacturer's proprietary utility (such as Intel SSD Toolbox) recommends disabling SuperFetch, follow its advice. However, in this case, it is more than logical to keep all programs on the SSD, which will be discussed below.

Memory compression in Windows 10

On Windows 10, displayed in graphical interface The Superfetch service name has changed to SysMain, which matches the actual service name. Apparently, this is how Microsoft indicated a shift in the main purpose of the service from prefetching to a new function - memory compression. The company has published a detailed story about the technology in the Feedback Center application (PDF copy). Below is my brief explanation and additional information.

When the memory manager feels low on memory, it does not flush unused memory pages to disk, but rather compresses them. The paging file is written to only when the memory manager algorithms determine that compression does not compensate for the lack of memory.

Thus, by compressing memory, the number of I/O operations is reduced and, accordingly, the amount of writing to disk is reduced. As a consequence, if compressed memory is disabled, the combination of memory shortage and significant disk load will reduce overall OS performance.

The concept is called compression store. This is a collection of compressed pages stored in memory. Uses a single storage for all applications (Win32 and UWP), as well as individual storage for all Windows applications Runtime, providing trimming and swap. Instead of writing pages to the page file, the memory manager compresses them and places them in the appropriate storage.

The Microsoft article does not mention the service SysMain. In addition, since the publication of the material, the visual presentation of information about compressed memory in the task manager has changed. Next, I will show you how to check that this particular service is assigned the memory compression function.

When the SysMain service is enabled, you can open the Task Manager tab Performance and in the section Memory verify the use of compressed memory, and also see additional information by hovering over the area Memory structure.

Windows 7 will disable defragmentation for SSD drives. Since SSDs perform superior at random reads, defragmentation will not provide the same benefits that it does on a regular drive.

If you don't trust the developers, take a look at the event log. You won't find any entries there about defragmenting the SSD volume.

So, when the SSD is the only drive, the scheduled job simply doesn't run. And when the PC also has a HDD, disabling a task or scheduler deprives the hard drive of worthy optimization by a standard defragmenter.

Windows 8 and later

In Windows 8, the defragmenter has been replaced by the disk optimizer!

Optimizing hard drives, as before, comes down to defragmentation. Windows no longer ignores solid-state drives, but helps them by sending additional a set of TRIM commands for the entire volume at once. This happens according to a schedule as part of automatic maintenance, i.e. when you are not working on your PC.

Depending on the SSD controller, garbage collection may occur immediately upon receipt of the TRIM command, or it may be delayed until a period of inactivity. By disabling the disk optimizer or task scheduler, you reduce drive performance.

3. Disable or move the swap file

This tip: useless or harmful, reduces system speed when there is insufficient memory

The hardware configuration must be balanced. If you don't have much memory installed, you should add more, since an SSD only partially compensates for the lack of RAM, making swap times faster than a hard drive.

When you have enough memory, the page file is hardly used, i.e. This will not affect the life of the disk in any way. But many people still turn off paging - they say, let the system keep everything in memory, I said! As a result, the dispatcher Windows memory does not work in the most optimal mode (see #4).

As a last resort, the swap file is transferred to the hard drive. But if suddenly the memory is not enough, You will only benefit in performance by having pagefile.sys on the SSD!

IN: Do I need to place the page file on the SSD?

ABOUT: Yes. The main operations with the paging file are random writing of small volumes or sequential writing of large amounts of data. Both types of operations work fine on an SSD.

By analyzing telemetry focused on estimating writes and reads for the pagefile, we found that:

• reading from Pagefile.sys takes precedence over writing to pagefile.sys in a 40:1 ratio,
• read blocks for Pagefile.sys are usually quite small, 67% of them are less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% are less than 16 KB,
• The write blocks in Pagefile.sys are quite large, 62% of them are greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% are almost exactly 1 MB

Generally speaking, the typical page file usage patterns and SSD performance characteristics fit together very well, and it is the file that is highly recommended to be placed on the SSD.

But in practice, the desire to extend the life of an SSD at any cost is ineradicable. Here is a blog reader fretting over his SSD, transferring pagefile.sys to the hard drive, although he himself can even see with the naked eye that this reduces performance. By the way, my netbook cannot install more than 2 GB of memory, and with a solid-state drive it became much more comfortable than with a standard 5400 rpm HDD.

Finally, don't forget that complete shutdown page file will not allow you to diagnose critical errors. The paging file size can be flexibly adjusted, so you always have a choice between disk space and productivity.

Tricky question: What was my page file size when I took the task manager screenshot?

Special Note

On the Internet (including in the comments to this post) you can often come across the statement: “A swap file is not needed if you have installed N GB RAM". Depending on your imagination, N takes the value 8, 16 or 32. This statement does not make sense, since it does not take into account the tasks that are solved on a PC with a given amount of memory.

If you installed 32GB for yourself, and 4-8GB are used, then yes, you don’t need FP (but then it’s not clear why you bought 32GB RAM :). If you have purchased such an amount of memory in order to use it as much as possible in your tasks, then the FP will be useful to you.

4. Disable hibernation

This advice: vague and harmful for mobile PCs, may reduce battery life and speed of your work

I would formulate the advice like this:

• stationary PCs - shutdown is normal, because you might as well use sleep
• mobile PCs - turning off is not always advisable, especially when battery consumption is high during sleep

However, people have, are, and will continue to disable system protection regardless of the type of disk, it’s already in the blood! And no, I don't want to discuss this topic in the comments for the hundredth time :)

6. Disable Windows Search and/or Disk Indexing

This tip: useless, slows down your work speed

Sometimes this is argued by the fact that SSDs are so fast that the index will not significantly speed up the search. These people simply never really used real Windows search!

I believe that it makes no sense to deprive yourself of a useful tool that speeds up everyday tasks.

If you have fallen victim to any of these myths, tell me in the comments if I managed to convince you of their uselessness or harm and in what cases. If you disagree with my assessment of "optimization", explain what the benefits of these actions are.

You can mark fragments of text that interest you, which will be available via a unique link in address bar browser.

about the author

Vadim, I'm for it last days I bought myself 4 SSDs to install on all my computers. Let's just say... life has changed :-)

I also thought for a long time whether to buy a laptop with an SSD or a hybrid drive, the second one won, I chose 340GB + 24 SSD. What surprised me was that standard installation Windows 8 was on the 5400 drive, but not the SSD. After suffering for a long time, I moved Windows 8 to an SSD and was a little freaked out, because... There is about 3GB left on the SSD. Knowing that over time the W8 would swell and it would be necessary to fight for space, I returned everything back, transferred the TEMP and Page file to the SSD, plus installed frequently launched programs.

Still, you just had to buy a laptop with an SSD and not worry about it. They gave me an SSD for NG and now I’ll stuff it into an old netbook, install W8 and be happy.

Thank you for the articles about SSDs, our entire department reads them.

Alexei

You, Vadim, have done a great job of going through SSD myths; we can hope that there will be fewer fans of SSD perversions now. I have Win8 on an SSD, it works just the way I installed it, I’m happy and I don’t bother myself with all sorts of optimizations whose output is questionable.

PS: Answer to the question: 1Gb.

• Alexey, thanks for your response. You can’t put your head down on everyone, but I’m not trying to :)

  The answer to the question is incorrect. How did you come to him?

madgrok

Before buying an SSD, I read a mountain of forums, benchmarks, etc. And I came to the conclusion that all the tweaks are in the firebox.
Why do people buy SSDs for themselves? Of course it would be faster! :) And most optimization tweaks basically negate all the performance gains, which is what Vadim wrote about.
I use my Vertex 4 256 GB as a regular disk for the system. I bought it sometime in the fall. Excellent flight, 100% health
Excellent article, I will recommend it to all my acquaintances and friends to read so that they don’t suffer. :)
And in general, thanks to the author for an excellent blog. I really like the fact that he tries to “disassemble the topic to its bones.”

Andrey

Vadim, at the end of the article there is a survey about the presence of SSDs on our computers, I think that this topic is still relevant - there are those who do not intend, at least in the near future, to acquire a solid-state drive for a number of reasons - someone does not see the point of installing it on an old one computer - saving for a new one, or as in the survey point - satisfied with the HDD, or like Pavel Nagaev - he thinks for a long time which to prefer...
What would you recommend? Is it worth moving the OS to an SSD to “increase system performance,” so to speak?

Andre

Hello Vadim, I think a lot of people are now looking at buying an SSD, and it would be very cool if you wrote an article on choosing an SSD!

Alexey Matashkin

Vadim, thanks for the article.
In my practice, I have never encountered these myths, I only heard some advice separately, so I read it with pleasure.

I don’t quite fit into the survey :) The main PC is not a home PC, and it has an SSD. But at home, the usual is enough for now.

There is nothing to add regarding questions, because I don’t use tweaks, all installed SSDs work normally with the system.
Although, an important detail is updating the firmware on the disk. In my practice, there are 3 cases of serious failures that were resolved with firmware version updates.

Valentine

Pavel Nagaev,

Your 24 SSD was most likely designed for caching, which is why it is so small, maybe you needed to use it as a cache, in which case you will get the benefits of both media - capacity and speed. Vadim, do you have an article regarding hybrid hard drives or combining HDD and SSD operation? I think many readers might be interested in such an article. I think the topic about 12 myths is very useful, as I have many friends who consider themselves experts, but make such mistakes and impose these mistakes ordinary users, thanks to a link to this article, it will be possible to convince them to make such mistakes

Vadims Podāns

Good and useful article.

Sergey

Yes, it’s really surprising people who buy SSDs to speed up work, but then transfer everything and turn it off and again lose performance.

MythBusters are in action! We had a great run through all these myths.

Alexey G

At first I fell for disabling hibernation, but then I realized that it was inconvenient.
I remove the 8.3 marks. Because I use new versions of the program, and I don’t need it)

From life: when I assemble a PC with an SSD, I transfer user files to the HDD. If the PC for unknown reasons (playful hands, viruses) starts to not boot, then if I’m nearby, I’ll restore the configured image installed system(thanks to the blog), but if a person calls another “master”, the first thing he will do is format the disk: (Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a smarter method in my city. So this is a forced need to preserve the user’s files.

Answer to the question: 2834MB?

Dima

Thanks Vadim.
As always, intelligibly and with a light sense of humor.
As I promised, I part with myths easily and see you off on your last journey. I'll turn everything back on.
Best regards, Dima.

PGKrok

I agree on all points, but I myself had to transfer the index files, some programs and personal photos and videos to the HDD, because... SSD - only 60 GB (I've already mastered it :))
For comparison (to the question of “keeping a picture in mind”)
Result CrystalDiskMarc (HDD)
http://pixs.ru/showimage/HDD1301020_6347406_6812031.png
Result of CrystalDiskMarc (SSD)
http://pixs.ru/showimage/OSZ3010201_4238885_6812055.png

SATA-3 SSD controller - SATA-6

Dawn

I bought a 60gb ssd and left only Windows 8, program files, appdata, program data on it. The rest is on hdd.
Reason: growing too fast system partition, just look, the place will go to zero.
When purchasing, there was one goal: to speed up the cold boot of the system. That's what I achieved - 8 seconds.
Vadim, the article is excellent, thank you!

Ruby

About transferring TEMP and cache - I stupidly moved them to a gigabyte ramdisk - this is a real speed increase, incomparable with an SSD.

Denis Borisych

I’ve been working in IT for a long time and I still never cease to be amazed at woe to optimizers.

I've had an ssd in my home computer for about a year now and it's still going strong. 7 starts in 10 seconds, programs load quickly and easily without any optimizations. Well, except that the folder of necessary and important documents is not on the ssd (its size is 500 GB). And in the “My Documents” folder there is usually a list of documents.

As a person very close to IT, sometimes I am not enthusiastic about MS innovations (the inability to use Explorer without a mouse alone is worth it). But I must objectively admit that in terms of optimizing the operation of the OS on an ssd and stability of operation, they are undoubtedly great.

Ruby

I would also transfer the search index, but on the Windows blog they write that it is still kept in memory, so there is no point.

SuperFetch is needed in any case; it preloads files into RAM in advance, increasing speed and reducing the number of accesses to the drive.

Valery

Vadim, I read your articles quite regularly and often put the advice from them into practice.
Having bought an SSD (Intel 520 120GB), I also first read about all sorts of optimizations and even applied some, but now I left only the indexing transferred to the HDD and Intel’s recommendations for its drives, and this is where some of your advice and Intel’s recommendations diverge:
http://123foto.ru/pics/01-2013/42746566_1358157387.jpg
Who should I listen to?))

Alexei

Vadim Sterkin,

Came at random :-)
My paging file takes up 1 Gb per 16Gb of RAM (size selected by the system). Moreover, the system monitor shows almost zero % load. I decided that 8Gb should have at least 1Gb.

Oleg

Hello Vadim. I always look forward to new articles from you, this article was VERY useful for me and for my friends. To my regret, my arguments and advice do not reach some friends, for some reason they trust more forums where they do not always write useful information.
I hope this article will convince you.

I'll be waiting for an article about choosing an SSD.
Thank you.

Georgiy

Thank you for the article.
To be honest, I didn’t quite understand about Superfetch - what is the increase in performance on an SSD?

As for the size of the paging file, the answer seems to be this: the line allocated says 10.7 GB. The amount of RAM must be subtracted from this figure.

Alexander

Recently bought SSD Kingston Hiper X 3K 120GB. I installed Seven sp1. I did not see any increase in download speed or program performance.
Previous configuration: Asus P5Q, 2 WD 500Gb Raid 0, DDR2 2 1GB each.
My conclusion: when connecting an SSD to a “slow” Sata 3Gb/s port, the increase in system performance compared to that installed on stripping is insignificant. You will have to upgrade to a motherboard with Sata 6Gb/s and at least 8GB DDR3 memory.

GlooBus

Pavel Nagaev,

SSD drives of 16-32 GB soldered onto laptop motherboards are of no use. The best thing in this case would be to take a laptop in a simple configuration with an HDD and do the upgrade yourself. I did just that, took an ASUS X301A with 2 GB of memory, 320 GB HDD and upgraded to 8 GB of memory and 128 GB SSD. The laptop worked completely differently! Loading the computer from pressing the button until the password entry window appears 6-7 seconds. I didn’t make any tweaks, except that I turned off indexing, because... I don't use search.

Alik

The other day I installed VERTEX 4 128Gb on it with Win 8, applied optimizers and after a week I realized that it was in vain, incl. will have to reinstall. And here is also a sensible article.

Now solid-state drives, or SSDs, are actively taking over the market and are replacing the good old HDD drives. They gradually fall in price, and their volume is constantly increasing. But it's not that simple. These drives have their drawbacks. The fact is that the service life of memory cells is limited, and it is greatly affected by the number of rewrites. That is why the correct configuration of an SSD drive under Windows 7 directly affects the service life of this device. Let's look at all this in more detail.

SSD Lifespan

This disk is a regular flash memory, i.e. microcircuits. There are no mechanical, moving parts. This flash memory consists of cells, and they tend to wear out. The more information you write to the disk, the more they wear out. Therefore, setting up an SSD drive is very important. If the disk is being read, then this does not affect its wear.

There are various utilities that can be used to obtain information about the operation and status of the drive. One of them is CrystalDiskInfo. With its help, you can find out many characteristics and performance indicators of the disk. For example, firmware serial number, total number of operating hours, number of starts, rotation speed (if we are talking about HDD), etc. We will be interested in the field showing the number of host records. The disk controller counts the total amount of data written to memory during its entire operation. This is due to the way flash memory works. Therefore, the figure shown here in gigabytes will exceed the capacity of your disk.

Setting up an SSD under Windows 7

Modern flash memory (MLC) is designed for sufficient big number rewrite cycles, for example 1000, 2000, etc. This means that you can completely rewrite the disk, for example, a thousand times. If you have 128 GB, then you multiply this value by a thousand and get the final result - the total amount of data that you can write to the drive over its entire service life. This indicator appears in the “Total host records” column. It indicates the amount of data written to the disk since it began operating. For comparison, it must be said that 128 GB SSD drives are designed to record 40-70 TB of information. With very active use of the disk, on average, about 10 TB of information is accumulated per year. Thus, its service life will be about 4-7 years.

With moderate use of an SSD drive, the amount of data written to the disk will be two or even three times less, and its service life will be correspondingly longer. That is why they are recommended under But first you need to achieve correct settings SSD. Installing and configuring an SSD under Windows 7 will not take much time. But that is not all. In order to achieve best results, another process is running. This Windows setup 7 for optimal performance with SSD storage.

How the system is configured

Above we learned how flash memory works and what its resource is. Now let's look at how to configure and optimize Windows 7 for proper operation of the SSD drive. It does not require deep knowledge of computer science or deep knowledge of the system. Even a novice user can do this. You will need to complete eight steps to optimize Windows to use an SSD drive. Myths and reality are closely related to each other, and some may get a little confused. We will tell you step by step where to click and what commands to set.

Disabling System Restore

We need to disable Next - "System and Security", then - "System". Then you need to open "Advanced system settings". In the "System Protection" tab, click on "Configure". There are several options here: “Enable protection” and “Disable protection”. We can also configure the number of gigabytes that we allocate for system protection.

This refers to the automatic creation of a copy of the system, the so-called recovery point, and how much disk space is allocated for this. The default is from 2.5 GB to 10 GB. Accordingly, if we disable system recovery, the specified number of gigabytes will be freed on the disk. This setting makes sense to increase free space SSD drive and at the same time reduces the amount of data written to the SSD. However, system protection is very useful feature, and whether to turn it off or not is up to you. If your SSD storage capacity is large enough, then you can leave everything as is. If not, or you do not use protection, you can disable it.

Turning off data indexing

This point has a more practical meaning, which directly affects the speed of your SSD drive and its durability. In the "My Computer" tab we find " System disk" and go to "Properties".

Below, by default, the option to allow indexing of files on disk is enabled. This function was developed to optimize the performance of HDD media. This was due to the specific operation of their magnetic plates and heads. There is no such need for SSD drives, so we uncheck this function. This will eliminate unnecessary writes to the SSD disk. If an error suddenly occurs, it will be related to the swap file. You will need to disable it, reboot the system and repeat disabling the above option again.

Disabling the page file

By Windows default creates a special file on the system disk - this is the swap file. It is used to write some information from RAM to an area on the system disk. This is used in resource-intensive applications such as Photoshop. Some information is unloaded from RAM onto the hard drive, and when necessary, it is loaded back. If you have enough RAM (8 GB or more), then this page file can be safely disabled. This will reduce the number of writes to the system disk. If RAM is small and the applications you use are quite powerful, then disabling this file may cause system instability. Here you need to look individually.

To disable the file, follow the following path: “Control Panel”, then “System and Security”, then “System”, then “Advanced Settings”, then “Advanced”, then “System Performance”, “Settings”, then “Advanced” , "Change". By default it is enabled, you need to uncheck the box and then click “No paging file”.

Turning off hibernation

Hibernation is a special sleep mode, supplemented new feature. It was also developed for Windows Vista. In this mode, data from RAM is rewritten to the system partition, and we can turn off the computer from the network. After switching on, all information is restored, automatically read from the system media into RAM. So everything open source software find themselves on the desktop again. Data will not be restored in normal sleep mode. If you do not use hibernation, you can disable it. This will reduce the number of writes to the SSD and free up additional space.

Go to the command line: Start menu, enter “cmd” in the search, run it as administrator. Enter the following phrase there: “powercfg-hoff”, and then press Enter. After this, restart the computer. If in the future you want to return everything back, you will need to enter “powercfg-hon” in the command line and then restart the computer.

Disabling Prefetch (Files in RAM)

This feature loads some data into RAM if you access it frequently. The operating system itself monitors these files and anticipates this possibility. For example, do you often use text editor Word. Some files are already loaded into RAM, and this program launches faster.

For an SSD drive you will not get any noticeable increase in speed, since it works faster than an ordinary HDD, so you can turn off this function. Most often, the operating system itself disables this function when Windows installation to an SSD drive.

How can you check if this option is enabled and how can you disable it? This is done using system registry. You need to open the system registry editor. Go to the “Start” menu, enter “Run” in the search bar and open the “Run” window in the results. Enter the word regedit there and click OK. The system registry editor window opens. Here we go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE directory, then to the SYSTEM tab, then CurrentControlSet, then Control, then SessionManager, MemoryManagement and PrefetchParameters. Click EnablePrefetcher, select “Change” and replace the number 3 with 0. Click OK, reboot, and the function will be disabled.

Disable SuperFetch (disabled by default) and Windows Search

This function can be disabled more easily, without the system registry. Go to: “Control Panel”, then “System and Security”, then “Administration”, then “Services” and look for Superfetch in them. Click the mouse and select "Properties". Then click "Startup Type" and then "Disabled". Next, click “Apply”, OK. After a reboot, the changes will take effect.

If you wish, you can turn off the Windows Search service. It helps you search for files on your computer. Accordingly, turning it off will be at your discretion. If you still decide to do this, then in the “Services” described above you need to find Windows Search, then “Properties”, then “Startup Type”, then “Disabled”, OK. In principle, this is not necessary.

Turn off clearing Windows cache

This step will not have a positive impact on performance for all drives. For example, on Intel SSD drives, the company itself does not recommend disabling this option.

Select: “My Computer”, “System Disk”, “Properties”, “Hardware”, the desired SSD, “Properties”, “General”, “Change Settings”, “Policy”. Check the box "Disable cache buffer clearing...". If after these steps the performance of your disk has dropped, it is recommended to uncheck this box.

Disabling ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache (disabled by default)

The ClearPageFileAtShutdown option allows you to clear the page file when the computer boots, and the LargeSystemCache option is the size of the file system cache memory. By default, when installing an operating system on an SSD, these options should be disabled. Windows 7 disables them itself. In order to check this, you need to go into the system registry.

We also go to the system registry editor (see how to do this above). In the branch, go to the following folder: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/SessionManager/MemoryManagement". In the right field we find the file LargeSystemCache. Click on "Change". If the field is 0, then it is disabled. We immediately find and also check the file ClearPageFileAtShutdown. If the field is 3, then you need to change it to 0, then click OK and restart the computer. You will learn further how to set up an SSD drive for Windows.

conclusions

That's basically it. The basic settings have been touched upon here. It is definitely necessary to disable the ClearPageFileAtShutdown and LargeSystemCache, SuperFetch and Prefetch, data indexing options. If desired, if RAM allows, you can turn off the paging file. System Restore and Windows Search are also disabled at will. To clear the cache, you need to look at the performance of your drive.

Setting up an SSD drive for Windows 7

Now let's talk about how to configure an SSD drive so that it optimally uses the resource stored in it. What steps and points must be followed in order for the disk to work as quickly as possible and its memory cells to remain operational for a sufficient amount of time? Setting up an SSD under Windows 7 does not require much time and is quite simple.

There are two modes of operation of the SATA controller. The first is the IDE, and it is usually enabled by default in the BIOS. The second mode is AHCI. It is this that will allow us to use NCQ and TRIM technologies, which will increase the speed of random writing and reading from an SSD drive. The TRIM command is sent by the system and allows disk cells to be freed from physically deleted data, thus increasing its performance.

Enabling AHCI Controller Mode

If you have not yet installed Windows, then you can change the mode from IDE to AHCI without any problems in the BIOS. After this, Windows 7 is installed and configured on the SSD drive, and everything works. If you have already installed the system, the procedure will be described below.

We need to go to the registry editor, finding the file regedit.exe. How to do this was discussed above. In the system registry editor you need to open a branch according to the following scheme. SSD configuration under Windows 7 occurs in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci directory. Here we need to find the ErrorControl parameter. Click and select "Change". The default value will be 3. You need to replace it with 0, then OK. Just below we find the Start parameter. We also change the value from 3 to 0 and click OK. Next, reboot the computer and go into the BIOS. Now we change the controller mode from SATA to AHCI, save the BIOS and load the operating system.

Now we need to check whether changes have occurred in the system. To do this, go to “My Computer”, then “Properties”, then “Device Manager” and find the IDEATA item here. It needs to be opened, and if you have the line “Standard PCIIDE controller,” then nothing has changed. If you have AHCI in this place, then everything is in order, setting up the SSD under Windows 7 was successful. These steps can be carried out before making changes to the registry and BIOS. You may already have AHCI mode enabled.

Now we have the TRIM command, which will allow the disk to function faster when littered with data, and NCQ technology is available, which allows you to increase the speed of random reading and writing of information.

Thus, the optimization of the SSD operation under Windows 7 was successful. The tips given above should help you in setting up the system for the SSD. All this will make your computer work as efficiently as possible.